Balancing Solo Careers, Big & Rich Reunite for Summer Tour

After taking a break last year, Big & Rich have reunited for a full summer of tour dates. Of course, they’re both pursuing solo careers, as well. John Rich released Son of a Preacher Man in March and created national attention with the single, Big Kenny says he’s mastered about 50 new songs in his home studio and recently released a single, Cowboy Troy will be out there, Two Foot Fred and the whole freak parade will be out there on the road. It should be a very entertaining concert. I know it’s tough out there for people to even think about buying a ticket to a show, but if you want to escape reality for a minute, the Big & Rich show is a pretty good way to do it. So if we’re coming through your city, come on out and see us.

You two are different on so many levels. Does that help you make it work as a duo?

Big Kenny: It completely pushes us apart, and then we get to go out there! The good thing is, whatever his world is and whatever my world is clash when we hit the stage. It clashes in a really good way. I think with two dudes like us, if we did everything together all the time, we would be doing the world a disservice. We both need to get out and do what we do [separately], and then come back and meet on that stage and do what we do together. … I just know that I am a better musician and singer today than I was yesterday or a year ago. You keep doing anything and you get better at it. I know he’s doing the same thing and growing in his life in the same way. You have to. That’s just the law of nature. But it’s going to be interesting to get out on the road. We’ve written apart from each other so much. We still probably have Lord knows how many songs in our catalog, but the road will give us a reason to bring our writing creativity together, too, if we choose to or see fit. Hell, maybe John will buy an island and invite me down for the weekend, and we’ll just write a whole record. Me and him, one thing about our writing, when we’ve got a great idea, it’s like bam! It just comes so quickly. It’s going to be a very exciting summer.

Rich: The fact that Big Kenny and I are so different on so many personal levels is probably what makes the outrageous dynamic. When we actually do find our center between the two of us, you have songs like nobody else writes. He couldn’t write those songs on his own and I couldn’t write those songs on my own. It truly is a pretty magical equation.